Until recently, nearly all payment cards in the United States were magnetic strip based. In fact, magnetic strip cards are still in use all over the world. There are common definitions for the data on magnetic strip cards, which are defined by ISO standards (e.g., ISO 7812, ISO 7813, etc.). The entire infrastructure of the payment networks is geared towards handling the data from magnetic strip cards, in particular the Track 1 and Track 2 data as read from a magnetic strip card.
Track 1, devised by the International Air Transport Association (IATA), can store more information than Track 2 and contains the cardholder's name, account number, and other discretionary data. This track is sometimes used by the airline industry, for example, when securing reservations with a credit card. Track 2, devised by the American Banking Association (ABA), is currently most commonly used, though there is some suggestion of a move to Track 1 as the standard. Track 2 is most commonly read by ATMs and credit card checkers. The ABA designed the specifications of this track as a standard to which all world banks presently abide. It contains the cardholder's account, encrypted PIN, and other discretionary data.
Wireless smart payment devices are becoming more prevalent in the marketplace. A “wireless smart payment device”, as used herein, refers to a device with processing capabilities usable for wireless payments. In some implementations, a smart wireless payment device may include an operating system for supporting a software application for a payment function.
Wireless smart payment devices may interact with wireless readers to enable transactions involving the wireless smart payment device. Examples of wireless smart payment devices include mobile phones, smart phones, key fobs, physical cards, personal digital assistants with interfaces to local card readers, and devices provisioned with a soft card. As used herein, the term “soft card” refers to a software-implemented payment, loyalty, membership or other card that is loadable onto a device with wireless communications capabilities.
Presently, the data recovered from wireless smart payment devices is assembled by a wireless reader into an image of the Track 1 and Track 2 data for use by point of sale (POS) terminals and from there onto the payment networks to effect payment. Initially, data recovered from these payment devices are not Track 1 or Track 2 assembled data. The data are composed of the payment device data elements of Track 1 and Track 2, such as the 16 digit personal account number (PAN), the name field, the expiration date of the card, the service code for the card, the personal identification number (PIN) indicator, a PIN verification value (PVV), a card validation value (CVV), etc. Thus, multiple reads by the reader from the payment device are required to recover all of the needed information. The wireless reader is then responsible for assembling the data correctly to create the complete Track 1 and Track 2 data.
Frequently, the payment device tells the reader how many characters of the data should be used in assembling the track data and also where it is to start in the track data. This level of sophistication required in the reader increases its complexity. Further, at present all issuers of wireless payment devices have defined and used their own software applications. This makes the task of designing readers even more difficult, because each wireless payment device to be supported by a reader requires its own code base to process the data coming from the payment device and format it correctly for use on payment networks. Thus, designing a reader to support multiple wireless payment device types greatly increases reader complexity.
Accordingly, in light of these problems with conventional wireless payment card data transmission methods, there exists a need for improved methods, systems, and computer program products for acquiring payment data from wireless smart payment devices, including payment devices of different types, by wireless readers for wireless payment transactions.